


Skydiving

by BlueFennec



Series: Life and Other Harmful Activities [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Avocados at Law, Bad Jokes, Bad Parenting, Betrayal, Chest Binding, Drunkenness, Forgiveness, Friendship, Gen, Gender Issues, Genderqueer Character, Homophobic Language, How Do I Tag, Inappropriate Humor, Metaphorgotten, Personal Growth, Psychological Trauma, Self-Harm, Trans Character, Trans Foggy, Trans Male Character, Transphobia, good parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 11:12:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3975934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueFennec/pseuds/BlueFennec
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It feels like skydiving, the exhilaration of finally knowing who you are, and the fear of falling to your death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for Daredevil Kink Meme Prompt:  
> "Either trans man Foggy or nonbinary Foggy, I'm happy with either. I just really want some trans!Foggy goodness. It can be Gen or Matt/Foggy which ever you would refer. "

It feels like skydiving, the exhilaration of finally knowing who you are, and the fear of falling to your death.

***

Foggy tells his father first, because his mother would simply say "Yes, dear" the way she always does when she cannot deal, the way she said "Yes, dear" when he had told her that there probably wouldn't be any grandchildren in her future. His father looks him in the eyes, then something distant just below his right ear, and gets back to work without a word. Foggy doesn't know what to do with that.

Later that night, there is a knock on his door. His father looks serious, and when he opens his mouth to speak, Foggy's eyes dart towards the window. He wonders how quickly he can climb out of it, get away. What he hears is, "Listen... son." It's tense, and it doesn't roll of the man's tongue easily, but it makes Foggy want to collapse and sob with relief.

They sit his mother down to tell her, and she says, "You are such a pretty girl." He doesn't know what to do say to that, doesn’t quite know how he feels. Later, she cries. It breaks his heart, but there is no turning back. You cannot jump and then get back into the plane.

***

Foggy has always been Foggy. The nickname is older than the decision, older even than their notions of gender, so his friends - those who stay, those he doesn't have to fight off with words or, sometimes, fists - barely need to adjust. This part is simple.

He decides against a variation on his birth name. To his father, he is Franklin now. His mother, who before had so easily called him Pat, now insists on Patricia. His heart breaks all over again every time she does, so he stops giving her reasons to call him anything at all.

***

How seriously people will take him on any given day moves up and down on a sliding scale from "Have a good day, sir" to "Who does that dyke think she's kidding?". It depends heavily on how he feels, what he wears, whether or not he ties his hair back in ponytail or leaves it as it is. He never considers having it cut short - it was too much work to grow it out like this, and he likes it, never mind what other people think. It's one of the many things that his parents have a hard time wrapping their heads around.

On good days, that's alright. They don't have to get it, nobody does. He is who he is - and all that has changed is that he can be honest about it, breathe deeper, smile wider, because there is nothing to hide anymore.

On bad days, he wonders if maybe there is. If "I'm a man" is enough of the truth, if maybe that is just another lie, albeit the more comfortable one. What he actually feels is so much more complex and complicated than that, and he can barely think it, much less put it into words. If he should tell his parents to not spend their savings on a therapists who will just tell him that he is a fraud.

On bad days, all he can see is the ground coming closer.

***

It's on one of those bad days when his mother finds him in front of the mirror. His chest has turned from an inconvenience to an alien landscape, red and purple and yellow. Discarded duct tape is strewn all over the floor. Foggy knows it's not safe. He can see, right there in the mirror, that it isn't, and the pain in his ribs tells him that there is nothing sane about it, either. He doesn't tell her any of that. He doesn't know how.

A week later, he finds the duct tape gone, and compression shirts where his bras used to be. She still doesn't call him Franklin, but she stops calling him by his birth name, tip-toeing around gendering her child in whatever way she can. She doesn't understand, but she doesn't want to wound, either.

The parachute opens.

It's a start.

***

Eventually, there is a therapist. She says that this is about figuring himself out, but Foggy knows better. He is still a minor, and his parents will only go through with what she approves of. Everything hinges on her believing him, on her judging him to be the real deal. So he finally gets a haircut, and he sticks to the only narrative, the only script he knows: He is straight as an arrow. He always knew that he was a boy. There was never any doubt. Never any doubt whatsoever.

Eventually, there is an endocrinologist, and then a surgeon, and the scars on his chest are much wider than he had wished for, but he realizes that he is lucky to have this, and God, it is so much better than the alternative.

Eventually, the name on his driver's license is Franklin Nelson.

Eventually, he has to choose. Either he undergoes a surgery he doesn't want, doesn't need, never even considered – or the gender on his birth certificate stubbornly remains the same.

Foggy chooses to become a lawyer.


	2. Chapter 2

By the time he is in college, Foggy’s hair has grown out again, and his beard has finally become thick enough to at the very least help him look his age. His voice has stopped changing, and he is finally starting to actually feel some of the confidence he has been faking in therapy.

Having to share a room with another guy still makes him nervous. He’s had enough of coming out over and over again, and just wants to be for a while, not have to explain himself to someone else for a while. Only that if he doesn't, there’s a million little things that could go sideways at any point, and half of the nightmares he has about that start with his potential roomie asking, “What’s that?”

So when Matt enters the room, he just starts talking, babbling over his nerves and insecurity, putting his foot in his mouth in every way possible. Matt doesn’t seem to mind, laughs at his dumb jokes, and makes dumber ones yet. They’re instant friends.

That Matt is blind shouldn’t make things easier, but it does.

***

The way Matt finds out - that Foggy _thinks_ he finds out - fits right into their weird relationship.

He is not exactly the tidiest roommate. Sure, he tries to keep the floor clean so Matt doesn’t fall over anything, but sometimes he misses an item or two, especially when he’s too drunk or stoned to care. There have been tripping and sliding incidents, and this is just another one: Matt stumbles and braces himself against his desk, Foggy flinches and automatically apologizes.

Only that this time, Matt frowns and asks, “What was that?”

Foggy turns around to look at the floor behind his friend, and his stomach drops out. This has to be the _dumbest_ thing that has ever happened to him. He takes a deep breath, tries to collect himself, tries to find a way to just not answer Matt's question, but if he doesn’t, he will pick the thing he just tripped over up, and then... _Nope_ , that was not going to happen. Also, no big deal, really, right? He could tell Matt anything he wouldn’t know the difference, would he? The silence, though, is already stretching long enough to become awkward, and Matt is weirdly perceptive, sometimes, and… and it’s Matt. Things are easy with Matt. He would have told him sooner or later, and this is at least a _little_ funny. No, actually, the joke is just way too good to pass up. Foggy clears his throat.

“You just tripped over my dick.”

For a beat, he wonders if this was a mistake, but Matt answers, “That has to be the world’s worst pickup line.” He slowly raises his eyebrows, one after the other, and pokes the stuffer on the ground with his cane. “Seriously, you should keep it in your pants.”

The look on his face is golden, and Foggy snorts. “Well, yeah, usually I do, but it’s kind of hot today. Thought I’d air it out for a bit.”

Now it’s Matt’s turn to laugh. “That’s not how it works.”

“It does for me. Is that a problem?” Foggy keeps grinning, but can’t keep the tension out of his voice.

Matt shakes his head. “We’ve talked about this, Foggy. You can’t leave your stuff lying around all over the place. I don’t care if it’s your books or your dick.”

“Yes, I know… No, I mean…” Foggy clears his throat, takes another deep breath. “I pick up my crap, and… we’re cool? No problem?”

Matt’s voice is a little softer now. He nods. “Yeah. No problem.”

***

Matt never goes beyond the request for a clutter-free floor, never asks any of the things everyone else ever wants to know oh so badly.

It’s a relief, at first. Over time, though, it becomes infuriating. It takes Foggy more than a month to figure out why: Since he moved into the dorm, Matt has become his best friend, and sometimes, there are matters on his mind that he wants - _needs_ \- to discuss with his best friend, needs to be able to casually or not so casually chat about over a beer or five. Like when he’s been thinking too much, or addressed the wrong way, or his parents have called. When, like today, he’s been cramming administrative law and got hung up on something related. There are just so many things going through his head that he can’t talk to Matt about. He doesn't even know what he actually knows, what he really thinks, where he has to pick him up to do speak to him.

He decides to get the beer first, and find out how to get Matt to ask questions later.

***

They have survived midterms, and after the second celebratory beer Foggy announces, “We’ll play a game. A drinking game, because we’re already drinking, and we deserve games, and we deserve more drinking.”

Matt raises his bottle. “Let’s hear it.”

“Bullshit Bingo. I ask you a really stupid question, and if you’ve been asked it before, you get to ask me, and if you haven’t - you drink, and then get to ask me.”

“Seriously?” Matt shrugs and laughs. “Okay, fine, go.”

“Right.” Foggy grins. “‘Hey, do you know Bob? He’s blind, too.’”

Matt pauses, takes his glasses off, and takes a long, deep drink. “My turn. ‘Did you grow that yourself or is it, like, glued on?’” He rubs at his chin, and points in the general direction of Foggy’s goatee.

“Actually, that’s a first.” Foggy noisily puts his bottle down. “And if you actually want to know, I totally grew that sweet perfect beard myself.”

Matt chuckles. “Come on, your turn.”

“‘Are you really b---’ Mmmpf!”

Foggy doesn’t finish the question - Matt has thrown pillow at his face, with astounding precision. After that, he empties his bottle and opens a new one. “How do you pee?’”

“ _There_ we go.” Foggy picks up his bottle and drinks.

The game goes on like this for while, and a few bottles in, they stop caring whose turn it is, or why exactly they are drinking, and what the objective of the game was. The stupid questions turn into complaints about stupid questions. Eventually the complaints turn into stories. Some are funny, some infuriating, some sad - most are a mix of all three. The questions return, but they are a lot less stupid, for the most part, and the few times they are, there is no malice in them on either side.

Come morning, they understand each other a little better. Come noon, they still remember enough.


	3. Chapter 3

It feels like skydiving, and Foggy has just jumped again when everything goes to hell.

***

There will be no case Nelson against the State of New York – times have changed, and Foggy simply has his birth certificate amended, fifteen years after he told his parents, almost to the day.

He is stronger now and more relaxed, has healed in body and soul. His scars have long since faded. He still thinks about them, sometimes, when needles and routine pull everything back into his focus. There is clarity in hindsight. He has no regrets, has done what he had to do to live. He has done it soon enough, and he has pushed through. There's just that feeling that maybe, over all that pushing, all that resistance he had to put up, he has shot a little past his original goal.

Foggy starts reclaiming what he feels he has lost on the way, sacrificed to other people's notions of masculinity.

He dusts off his jewelery chest. Half of the items inside is tarnished or broken, some don't fit anymore. He salvages what he still likes or values: a necklace, a few rings. It takes some time, but eventually he dares to wear them again, outside of the office and the courtroom.

He takes up knitting again, and even calls his grandmother to ask for patterns. She laughs and tells jokes like she hasn't in years, and he can tell it makes her so happy to hear from a child she thought she'd lost. She still calls him Patty, but he has grown, and she is old now – it doesn't have the sting it used to have. 

He drops the self-imposed restrictions on his body language. The ease of it makes him realize how much of it was artificial, how stiff his back had gone with “don't you dare cross your legs.”

It feels like flying, like the future can finally come. Foggy wants to share this feeling with his friends.

He orders a proper sign for their office door.

***

The ground is coming closer, and the ripcord is stuck.

Matt is beaten and bloody on the couch, rattling off all the things he can sense on Foggy, and Foggy wants to throw up in his face. The number of implications this has for their relationship is so huge it's sickening, and yet for a second his thoughts grind to a halt at: He knew.

He knew from the second he entered their dorm room, maybe even before. He must have smelled it. On that day, he could have _smelled_ it. Foggy gags, and takes a breath through the tears and the nausea. He feels violated. That particular invasion of his privacy is stark enough to span the years that have passed, to tear open all his scars one by one.

He hits the ground, and decides that he isn't just going to lie there and bleed.

Instead he leaves, packs his things, and throws away the sign. He doesn't know anymore if there is anything he can share with Matt Murdock, whoever he is.

***

The pain subsides, and he renews the stitches. It takes time. Talking to Karen helps. Matt doesn't push, and that helps, too.

Eventually, his stomach stops churning when he thinks back to that night.

Eventually, the sign is on their door, and he feels like this is where it belongs, and they joke again.

Eventually, Foggy has to choose. Either he leaves it at that, and he and Matt will stay friends, but never again good friends – or he finds that he is stronger, that he can forgive, if not forget, because even through all of this, they are still brothers.

Foggy chooses.


End file.
